“No!” he croaked.
A shrug. A diabolic grin. A step round behind and a snake tattoo took up residence on his back, its angry head visible on the right side of his neck.
A fourth serpent ended up on his chest, coiled to strike.
“Dress thyself.” After a last amused glance at his aching manhood.
The girl turned to Socia. “Thou mayest be what thou wilt.” She took up the crystal. Brother Candle struggled with his clothing. When the girl turned away his brain began to work again, slowly. Why did she use an antiquated, formal form of speech? That seemed more peculiar than any accent might have.
“Think thee of the shape thee wouldst fain take, clearing all else from thy mind and cleaving only to the form of thy desire.” The girl swept the crystal down in front of herself, from head to toes. She transformed into a leopardess no less alluring than the girl she had been before. The leopardess crouched in a pile of fallen clothing. It considered Bernardin and Brother Candle, for a moment purred like a lap cat. Then it did something with the crystal and changed back into the girl, now wearing nothing to get in the way of male appreciation.
Brother Candle groaned. “No.” At his age.
She was more toothsome than wickedest imagination could conjure. The ache worsened.
He wanted to whimper because she was dressing. At his age. And him being who he was.
Bernardin gurgled and fainted. Brother Candle abandoned all desire to be one of the Good Men. He worshipped the devil with his eyes.
The girl whispered to Socia, telling her how to use the crystal. Brother Candle caught a key point. You could become human again whenever you wanted but if you did it in public you would do it in all your naked glory. Whereupon the devil made Socia humiliate herself.
Bernardin’s luck was in. He remained unconscious. He would never bear witness.
Seeing the woman he considered a daughter unclad opened Brother Candle’s interior eye to a facet of self that he never suspected was there.
Unclad, Socia was deeply reminiscent of Margete, in the early years of their marriage. Not that the man he had been, Charde ande Clairs, had had many opportunities for so plain a view.
The demon made Socia practice till she had the knack. Till Brother Candle was confident they would all end up on the stake. The Church would be making nothing up when it rendered accusations, now.
“Most excellent. Thou hast mastered it, milady. ’Twill be thy gift. Be not profligate in the way thou useth it.” The girl tugged at her apparel, made it hang more comfortably. Then, “’Tis time. Be thou good soldiers in the struggle that cometh, all.” She collected the buckets and T staff, headed for the door.
“Wait. Who? What?” He could not get a real question out.
Temptation turned, gave Brother Candle a wink. And he, unable to believe that it was possible to become any harder, felt agony as his erection strove to burst through his trousers.
The demon giggled like a silly girl, came back, kissed him lightly with those wondrous lips.
He exploded.
* * *
“I have to go change.”
“Sit. We have to figure out what just happened,” Socia said.
“But I need to…”
“Sit down! Bernardin. Can you think yet?”
“Yes. Barely. What the hell was that?”
“You brought her here. Who was she? Where did she come from?”
Bernardin shrugged his massive shoulders. “I have no recollection.”
“It would seem that the Captain-General did not get all the Dark Gods when he was cleaning up revenants. Master. Stop fidgeting.”
Brother Candle was sure she knew. She was upset about that and angry because he had seen her unclad, though there had been little modesty between them back when they were fleeing the Captain-General. Modesty had been too much of a luxury then.
Socia remained businesslike. “That was no natural being.”
“Genius,” the old man said.
“If you’re going to get petty…”
“You’re right. I’ll stop. We were all embarrassed.”
“You have no idea, Master.”
“Socia?”
“Your response was dramatic. Bernardin’s must have been, too. I felt it myself. And I’ve never, ever, considered a woman that way. So. Pardon me my stare. I was amazed. Oh, Aaron! Oh, Lalitha! Preserve me. Guide me out of this fog of wicked obsession.”
Brother Candle said, “We need to shake that part of it or we’ll never pull ourselves together enough to work out what really happened.”
Bernardin said, “She forgot something.” His voice was that of a little boy distracted.
“What?”
“Look.” He used his toe to stir something under the table, then eased it out. He could not yet bend comfortably. The demon had not kissed him.
“Socia, you’ll have to get that. These old bones aren’t that flexible anymore.”
The Countess forbore comment. She retrieved what Bernardin had found. “Her necklace. She lost it when she changed shape. She must have missed it when she got dressed again.”
Bernardin croaked, “She got naked?”
“Easy, boy. She did. As a leopardess.”
Amberchelle looked to Brother Candle for confirmation. The old man nodded. How could they break the demon’s hold? Maybe Mistress Alecsinac would know.
Bernardin said, “It looks like a rosary.”
It was not but it did resemble one put together using oversize beads.
Socia wondered, “Did she really forget it? Or are we supposed to think she forgot it?”
Brother Candle shrugged. Either seemed plausible. She might have forgotten it because she was focused on driving an old man mad.
Socia said, “I have a feeling neither of you know what happened any better than I do.”
Brother Candle said, “A demon came. It englamoured us. It tempted us.”
“Really? Aren’t you supposed to be a Seeker After Light, not some superstitious peasant who still believes in all the dark spirits and agents of evil that ran around during the God Times?”
“You are correct, woman. I am a teacher and supposed Perfect. But our faith never prepared me for what we just went through.”
Bernardin Amberchelle said, “I don’t think our faith mattered. If we’d had a Deve, a Dainshau, a Praman, a Maysalean, and every kind of Chaldarean here, none of them would have known her and none of them would have responded differently than we did. That fiery slip was a destroyer of faith. Any faith.”
“What do we do?” Socia asked. “Whoever she was, whatever she was, she just dragged us into a new age. She made new people out of us. She gave us terrible gifts with no explanation. We have no idea why, nor any notion what those gifts may cost.”
Massaging his chest, Bernardin said, “I want to forget it. I want to go to the baths and scrub myself clean.”
Which presented an opportunity for an off-color jest. The Perfect resisted. Socia did the same. Amberchelle departed, preoccupied. Bemused, Socia asked, “Could any mortal girl be like that?”
“One in a generation might. I need to go change.”
“It may be hard to face one another, now, but we still have to decide how to deal with it.”
Sourly, Brother Candle said, “We need to find out what Instrumentality that was. Her attributes and aspects will tell us a lot. But not why, and not why us.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
Sadly, neither did the Perfect. Everything he knew and believed had become suspect. “I have to go change.”
“Go, then. Explore your wonderful fantasies. We’ll work out how much we’ll let what happened change our lives tomorrow.”
Brother Candle grunted agreement. He had to flee this scene of embarrassment.
He knew he would not get much sleep.
Questions and fantasies alike would rule his night.
He went wondering if all that really had changed his world. It might all be surface flash to the cranky old Perfect inside. Anyway, he was much too old for more drama.